Tag: trials and triumphs

What we do when we’re not in the hospital

I’m almost afraid I’ll jinx us by writing this post. Patrick finished his course of antibiotics and antifungals a week ago. So far, so good. We’ve been settling into life at home in this break that the super anti-infection medications have given us.

Patrick seems to be on a mission to make up for all of the time and opportunity his illness have caused him. So, I’m doing all I can to support him and help him to be successful in doing this. Last fall, he couldn’t roll over. Now he’s crawling, climbing stairs, and cruising along furniture. Because he’s in such a focused, productive period of development right now, we’ve called in the troops to help him to accomplish his goals.

He’s got 5 therapists right now, making for a total of about 10 therapy visits a month. We’re working on speech, motor skills, feeding, and more. It seems that every time we meet with one of these experts, Patrick learns some new and amazing skill from the visit. After a little bit of reinforcement at home, he’s doing things that had previously seemed impossible, or at least a long, long way off.

Of course, a more active, mobile, and as one physical therapist describes him “impulsive” Patrick requires much more supervision. He breaks a little connector piece in his IV tubing a minimum of 3 times a week. And a backpack on wheels is not capable of following him up the stairs. We have many more bumps and bruises than we used to have. Patrick’s a big braver sometimes than his skills can allow for and I don’t think it would be a normal day without him falling and bonking his head on something. But, as tired as I am from chasing all the time, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Last week we made a change in his IV therapy. Once a day now, he gets a one hour “break” from his TPN. No tubes. No pumps. I just disconnect him, put up the baby gates, and let him go. He plays and plays and then we reconnect the IV’s and the combination of activity and change in blood sugar knock him out completely. The only problem with this plan is that he’s taken to napping as late as 7 p.m.

Being at home with an easier medication regimen (just 2 oral meds and two nutritional supplements given morning and night) has actually given us time to do other things like cooking or playing and working in the yard or  taking care of the amazing friends who’ve taken such good care of us. I’ve had time to really dive into plans for the upcoming benefit concert (which sound more and more amazing by the day!) One of these days, I’ll even catch up on the ironing. (This is a little bit thwarted by the fact that Patrick really likes to stand holding onto the ironing board.)

It’s so nice to go to bed at the end of the day exhausted from a day of work around the house and playing with my little boy. It’s been a treat to be at home with my family and friends nearby. Things are good right now and we feel very, very blessed. It can’t be this way forever. Until Patrick’s transplant, there will always be another hospitalization around the corner. But we are grateful for this little moment of peace.

Results of today’s tests and surgery

Today’s been a pretty busy day. Patrick went at 9:30 to have an upper GI study today. They put a contrast solution into his stomach through his G-tube and then watched it move through his intestines. He’s had this test done a couple of times and the results are always quite interesting to see. As we knew, Patrick’s small intestine was quite fat and stretched out and his large intestine was pretty narrow, though not as narrow as I remember it being last September.

At the end of the study, the radiologist compared today’s images to the ones taken in September. Her result: “No significant change”. Yup, that’s right folks.. all that worry revealed that they officially discovered that Patrick’s anatomy is just as we expected it would be 6 months after his reconnection.

They are still wondering if this odd anatomy is to blame for some of the recent infections. (Bacteria or yeast from the gut leaking into the bloodstream through thin walls).. but are going to watch for a while to see rather than taking immediate action.

So – this afternoon Patrick had a new central line placed. This one has two lumens, meaning there are two tubes so you can put incompatible things in at the same time without them mixing like antifungals and TPN. We’ll be starting a new therapy hopefully tomorrow, too, where we fill the unused lumen with a solution that helps kill bacteria and fungus.

We’re still waiting for a plan to move forward from here. For some reason, even though little has changed anatomically, they’re acting as though something major was still wrong and therefore trying to make changes to diet, etc. I’m having to go all out working as Patrick’s advocate right now.. fighting for people to think things through and decide what’s best for Patrick based on himself, not on general rules and practices.

It’s exhausting work, so since he’s sleeping, I think I will too. Hopefully it’s a calm, restful night and I’ll be ready to get up and start pushing for a discharge plan tomorrow.

Not again!

Infection is a vicious cycle! The cure makes you vulnerable for further infection. A couple of posts ago I wrote about a bacterial infection that hadn’t been fully treated by antibiotics back in February. Well, at the beginning of last week that same infection grew back yet again! We don’t know exactly why, but as a result we spent a few days in the hospital while they worked out a treatment plan that would help to knock this infection out for good.

The plan included a change to the antibiotics he takes to control overgrowth of bacteria in his gut and a regimen of super high dose IV antibiotics prescribed for the next 6 weeks.

We were sent home on Thursday without Patrick ever having really been too sick. We joked that it must be time to plan a family vacation because with so many antibiotics, how could Patrick possibly get sick again?

That’s what we get for uttering the word “vacation”. Tuesday of this week Patrick wasn’t a very happy kid. He followed me around all day just wanting to be held. That night, he got another fever. At midnight, when it was rising, we called one of our favorite doctors at the hospital, Molly O’Gorman. She also couldn’t explain the fever, given the antibiotics, and so she recommended we stay at home till morning with the hospital would be less busy. So, we gave him some Motrin for his fever and I set my alarm clock to get up every hour to check to make sure he was still ok.

At 5 a.m. Patrick woke up just screaming. By 6 his fever was back and climbing rapidly. We gave him more Motrin to keep him from getting into even more danger and took him to the ER. He seemed to feel ok with the Motrin and the doctors were stumped as to the cause of the fever. But throughout the night he just got sicker and sicker. Every time his fever reducers wore off he’d have chills and high fevers and nausea.

His first night in the hospital was just miserable! I think we slept a whole 3 hours. By morning, the blood cultures came back with a definitive result, Patrick had a yeast infection in his central line.

For those of you who don’t know, Patrick fought a yeast infection for most of last summer.. and almost lost that battle. Yeast has to be the scariest bug I’ve ever seen him with. Unfortunately, this infection doesn’t seem to be much of an exception.

Yesterday was an eventful and stressful day. Because yeast loves to set up shop in catheters, Patrick’s central line had to be taken out yesterday. He’s strong and wiggly and fiesty enough now that he has to be sedated for this to happen.

This had a few ramifications for him. First, he had to have a transfusion. His spleen gets greedy whenever it’s sick and he becomes anemic. He’d fare ok for normal things, but in that state would not have been strong enough for anesthesia. The transfusion helped his blood counts, but it also further fed his blood hungry spleen and as a result he’s all puffy , swollen and sore today. His belly is hard as a rock and hurts, too.

Also, Patrick still has to have IV’s to keep up his blood sugar and give his medications. Right now, he needs 1 all the time, and 2 most of the time. But between the scarring and damage to his veins from previous IV’s and the effects of this bad infection, they’re having a hard time getting them in, or finding places to draw blood from for needed blood tests. Yesterday, he was poked over 10 times in 12 hours.

My poor little munchkin is sore and sad and sick. He has to have splints on his hand and arm to keep his IV’s from being pulled out, so playing with toys is frustrating.

The good news is that pulling out the line and treating with antifungals is helping. He hasn’t had a fever since last night! And this morning, for the first time in days, he is resting well enough that I was able to put him down. Hence, I found time to write this blog.

I apologize for the lack of pictures so far. When I get a minute, I’ve got some adorable stuff from our hospital stay a couple of weeks ago. This stay so far Patrick hasn’t felt well enough for us to do something as frivolous as picture taking… but now that he’s on the mend, I’ll be doing that soon.

As for mom and dad, well.. we’re pretty darn exhausted. It’s been nearly impossible to get a good night’s sleep.. or even to get a nap in. On top of that, we’re worried. We still have bad memories and plenty of heartache from our last experience with yeast infections. It’s scary to be facing one again… And it is the hardest thing in the world to watch your child suffer and not be able to take the pain away.

Still, all we can do is live each day as its given to us. It is more than a miracle that Patrick is still with us. He fought so hard to be here and is fighting still. We are doing all we can to make sure that he gets the best out of each moment he’s here.

We’ll keep you posted as we know more. For now, it’s just a matter of waiting for the medicine to do it’s job and then keeping these two infections from coming back.

Worth the wait

Last week was one of the harder hospital stays we’ve had, and I think it’s because there was so much waiting for answers to scary questions… and while we waiting Patrick didn’t feel all that sick and couldn’t figure out why his boundaries were suddenly so much smaller. Had he not discovered opening and closing cabinet doors as a way to spend his time, I think I’d have been a goner.

After 3 days, the lab tests showed that the infection was, in fact, the same infection Patrick had back in January. This type of bacteria can sometimes live in the plastic of a central line. The doctors theorize that the reason Patrick only sometimes had low fevers and only sometimes acted sick was that the infection was living in the line and only sometimes making its way into his bloodstream.

The best way to make sure Patrick got better was to take out his central line. So – Thursday afternoon they took Patrick to do an ultrasound of his veins to see where a new line could be placed. Friday morning they explained a plan to me that involved removing his broviac line and putting in a temporary PICC line instead. (Please see previous blogs for descriptions of the differences between these lines). After 3 days, they’d take out the PICC line and put in a new broviac line instead.

I explained again that we’d been told that Patrick couldn’t have PICC lines because of the collateral vessels in his shoulders. But – it was better to try than to plan for peripheral IV’s in his hands and feet for 3 days.. So we went ahead.

Both the broviac removal and the PICC placement are sedated procedures and it took some talking to convince them that they could be done at the same time – but, despite a full-to-overflowing hospital, they made it happen.

We got ready by putting an IV in his hand where contrast could be injected and an NG tube down his nose to drain his stomach and make sure he didn’t vomit and aspirate again. This took over an hour to do. Patrick has learned to block tubes with his tongue as they try to pass them down his throat. It took several tries and a very crafty charge nurse to finally get it all done. With music therapy there to try to help calm him down, the room seemed a bit like chaos. In the end, Patrick was exhausted and furious. I took this picture as I tried to calm him down right before he fell asleep from total exhaustion.

Late afternoon on Friday, they took Patrick to Special Procedures where they use a technique called fluoroscope to view the blood vessels to view the blood vessels as they work.

The anesthesiologist gave Patrick a dose of Versed and let me hold him as it put him to sleep. This was a first for me, and interesting to see his reaction. First he got all giggly. They he took my face in both hands and gave me a big sloppy kiss on the mouth. They he went kind of limp and I put him on the procedure table and left as he was drifting off to sleep.

Less than an hour later, they called. They explained that he did indeed have collateral vessels that made a PICC line impossible. However, they’d put in a deep peripheral IV that would better survive the 3 day wait.

Picking Patrick up, I learned that Versed does two things to Patrick. It makes him loud, and it makes him fearless. He spent the entire ride to his room and then at least an hour afterwards yelling “Hi!” at the top of his lungs to every person who passed by.. including the ones all the way out in the hall where they couldn’t see him. He also took to jumping and climbing and bonking his head into things. (He still has a bruise between his eyes from this game).

Soon he got tired and went to sleep. And we went back to waiting. Surgery requires a 3 day wait before they can put in a new broviac line whenever one is pulled for infection. In the meantime, the sugar in Patrick’s TPN had to be reduced to prevent damage to the peripheral vein. This meant he didn’t feel quite as well. He also kept the IV in his hand because we don’t dare take out any working IV, for fear we won’t get one later when he needs it.

Patrick didn’t want to slow down, though. Within a day he’d figured out how to still crawl with a splint on his hand.. he was determined to stand at the side of his crib.. and he taught himself to sit up to make sure that no one else would be able to get away with trapping him by laying him down. It was an exhausting 3 days because he was extra motivated to stay active, despite his new restraints.

Finally, Monday rolled around and Patrick was eligible for surgery again. We waited all day, and finally Patrick’s doctor told the nurse to call and see what was taking so long. We found that his name had been accidentally left off the schedule. They added him at 4 and around 6:30 took him down to surgery.

While we waited for the anesthesiologist to come, Patrick was his usual bundle of energy. He discovered a pretty big blue button on the wall that he pushed. He was thrilled by the alarm that sounded and how quickly people made it to the room. Yes, he found and pushed the “Code Blue” button that is used to call emergency help when a patient stops breathing or worse. I caught on and cancelled the alarm as the anesthesiologist got to the room. He only got to the button once more as we talked, which just got a big grin from the doctor.

The pre-surgery talk with this doctor scared me. He explained that there were big risks in intubating when Patrick had RSV. He also explained that the surgery might take a long time, as they didn’t know for sure how hard it would be to get a line.

Again, they gave Patrick a dose of Versed and I kissed him as he drifted off then went to the waiting room – a nervous wreck. Howie joined me about 15 minutes later, and after another 15 minutes the surgeon appeared and explained that they’d easily gotten a line in.

When I got to the recovery room, Patrick was trying his best to sit up while everyone else tried to keep him laying down. An hour later, though, in the room, he was up and full of energy. Again, he was fearless. His nurse kept calling him “wild” as he would quickly try to escape guarding hands to stand and jump, etc. Fortunately, by 10 he wore himself out completely and other than being woken by vitals, slept through the night.

Tuesday morning, we were finally able to go home. We arrived home almost exactly 7 days after we were admitted to the hospital.

When you’re confined in a little hospital room, you don’t necessarily notice all the learning your child has done. Patrick is now able to sit himself up and just needs a little more practice to master crawling on hands and knees. He’s playing peek-a-boo and other interactive games. He is a HANDFUL and it seems as though it came overnight.

He was so happy to be home with space, though, and so was I! It’s so much easier to contain a tornado if it has a little bit of space to bounce around in. We’ve had to adapt some, though, to adjust to his new skills. It’s no longer safe to use the changing table.

Patrick did manage to break his line his first morning home, so we spent yesterday morning up at the hospital getting it repaired. (Big thanks are owed to the GI staff who managed this in their clinic and saved us a trip to a very overworked ER). Between that adventure and his daily appointments this week, I was quickly reminded that, even at home, keeping up with Patrick and his needs is plenty of work.

We did see his pediatrician yesterday and she was all grins as she handed me a growth chart that showed Patrick’s weight in the 5th percentile! He’s always been well under the lines on the growth chart. We’ve never even talked percentiles.

I don’t know how we’ve been so blessed that, even with infections, he’s been really very healthy for so long. But we are grateful as we take each day at a time. Some days are harder than others, but at least this week, the outcome is worth the wait.

The waiting game

It’s 10 minutes past midnight and I’m sitting up waiting for Patrick to fall asleep again after being woken for vitals just moments after finally drifting off to sleep. This was the 4th nurse we’ve had in 12 hours.. That’s right, a new nurse for every set of vitals. And it’s making me homesick.

Patrick hasn’t been himself all weekend. He had low-grade fevers and was more irritable than normal. Finally, yesterday morning I gave in and called to request blood cultures. I was guessing that he had an ear infection or some other ordinary childhood illness.. But as it turns out, he’s got another infection.  Yesterday’s cultures grew a bacteria that so far is relatively similar to the one that caused his infection a month ago.

And so now we’re playing the waiting game. We won’t know until sometime tomorrow (or is it today?) whether or not the bacteria is the same. If it is, the question becomes why didn’t it go away before and what can be done now to get rid of it. In the meantime, they’re giving IV antibiotics that I’m hoping will help him feel better soon.

He’s really not acting all that sick. This is good news as it means that we can probably treat the infection more easily. It does mean he’s a little more stir crazy because he wants to be crawling and exploring like he can at home. A crib and a playmat are just don’t seem like enough surface area to him.

That it’s RSV season makes this a unique hospital stay. Because the Infant Unit is full with babies sick with RSV. We’re tucked away in a corner of the Children’s Surgical Unit. It’s quiet here… much more peaceful than the Infant Unit in respiratory season. We’re getting to know a whole new set of nurses which can be disorienting.. especially since they rarely get babies here. But Patrick easily wraps any nurse around his little finger, so we’ll have friends here soon, I’m sure.

I’m hoping that the day will bring enough information that we’ll be able to end the waiting period and move on to a treatment plan. When I know more, I’ll try to put it here on the blog.

On a different note – any of you out there reading this post who haven’t done so already – please visit the “Activities and Events” page. Click on “Five for February” and send the message on that page to 5 people who you think would donate or forward the message or both. We have been stuck just under the $5000 mark for some time now. We only need 8 people to give $5 and we’ll cross that threshhold.

RSV and other adventures

This post is a follow-up on last week’s rant. It turns out that Patrick’s low-grade fevers were caused by RSV, a highly dangerous respiratory bug. He probably picked it up while he was trying to taste every piece of furniture in his hospital room the week before.

He was discharged to home before noon.. less than 24 hours after he was admitted. They sent us home with orders to visit the outpatient respiratory clinic as often as needed and boy have we been glad to have that resource! I think we caught this bug the first day… The symptoms didn’t really hit till Friday. Friday morning when he woke up he was working hard to breathe and my best efforts with steam and a bulb syringe wouldn’t budge things so I took him in. The respiratory therapist described the secretions as “glue”. He said that is was possible that Patrick was needing extra fluids, since I couldn’t give him drinks to keep him hydrated. So I stopped and asked for a prescription for some extra fluids.

The next night, he hardly slept! Finally at 3 a.m. I put the fluids on and he finally started to be able to clear his airway and went to sleep. When we took him in again his oxygen saturations weren’t in the dangerous zone, but they had dropped significantly.

That was the worst of it, though.. Patrick is actually doing much better these last couple of days. I think we finally have him rehydrated and he’s breathing much more easily now. We haven’t had to take him in for help in a couple of days now. I think that other than the long contagoius period and resulting quarantine, he’s on his way back to normal.

As for our car – well, it turned out to need $4000 in repairs. This is NOT what we wanted to hear in January, the month where we pay all of our out-of-pocket medical for the year.. We ended up approving the repairs, but have also decided that it’s time to sell that car and drive something more affordable to repair. And maybe once that car’s sold and our tax return comes back and things are a bit more stable, we can revisit the idea of having a practical car for me to drive in Seattle while leaving Brian with a practical car to drive here.

None of this excitement has done much to hinder Patrick, though. Despite being sick and grumpy and working to breathe, he is still growing up more and more every day. A week ago, I took a load of laundry downstairs. When I came upstairs I discovered Patrick halfway across the kitchen floor. He had dragged his IV pumps in their backpack by the tubing a good 4 feet trying to follow me downstairs. The next day we invented a safer way for him to get around.

Now when Patrick’s playing on the floor he wears a safety harness connected to a little cart that his backpack sits in. This way, he can get around the house without as high of a risk of ripping his central line out. He’s enjoying exploring how far he can go, and getting faster all the time! The funniest thing is how much he loves being under furniture. I’m amazed at all the places I find him. (And have to subsequently save him from.. because he gets his tubes and harness tied all around the furniture legs).

He also spent most of his last hospitalization improving his standing skills and he now dares stand himself up to some furniture and can walk around a big holding on… especially in his crib.

When it rains, it pours

Someday I’ll figure out why Patrick’s hospitalizations tend to concide with 1)holidays and vacations or 2)periods of stress for me.

If you don’t know, Patrick was hospitalized last week because of another bacterial infection in his bloodstream. The good news is that it quickly responded to antibiotics, quickly grew so it could be identified and more accurately treated, and therefore he quickly was back to himself. This infection was a reminder of how Patrick gradually is becoming more fragile the longer he waits for transplant, though. His spleen wasn’t very happy with this particular infection – just one side effect of residual liver damage.. and it started to cause his blood counts to fall. So even though the infection was caught and treated very early, we still had to keep a very close eye on him for a couple of days.

We took him home on Wednesday and he’s been doing pretty well since. That gave me a few days to really work hard on catching up on some impending deadlines and to deal with some unexpected problems.

Brian was complaining about the car not accelerating the way it normally does the day we brought Patrick home. He made an appointment to take it to the mechanic this week. That appointment is for tomorrow morning. Sunday morning, instead of making it’s usual complaining noises, though, it started to spew clouds of white smoke so think that I can’t see the car behind me.

Brian had business meetings in L.A. today, though, and I didn’t dare be without a car that Patrick’s carseat fit into. So we agreed to take his truck for a tune-up yesterday so that it would be in good condition should the car be gone for a while.

Well, an hour before I left to pick up the truck today, Patrick woke up from a nap fussy and feeling warm. The thermometer read 100.2, which is not technically a fever.. but added to the fact that today was the last day of his antibiotics and the fact that he’s been fussy since 4 a.m. I made a call to his GI to see if they wanted to test to make sure the infection wasnt recurring.

In the end, his doctor recommended that he come back to the hospital for observation. So – here we are. They’ve drawn blood cultures and done a test for respiratory bugs as well. And we’re hanging out here waiting to see what they find. Meanwhile, my car is sitting outside the mechanic so they can start work on it first thing in the morning. I’ll be surprised if the repairs for this come in under $1000. And my deadlines will just have to wait for a little while.

One thing about it, though.. if we were at home, I’d be up all night monitoring Patrick’s temperature and the other vital signs I know how to check. Here, the nurses will do that and Patrick and I can hopefully get some rest.  And hopefully by morning Patrick will be well and ready to go home, my car will be diagnosed and on it’s road to recovery, and I can get back to simpler things like following Patrick around moving his backpack so he can work on his crawling skills and teaching him to eat vegetables.

Our Seattle Adventure

As many of you know, Patrick had an appointment for a check-up at Seattle Children’s this week. He was scheduled in clinic for about two hours Tuesday afternoon. We decided to try to make a family vacation out of this trip (since we haven’t had a vacation since adopting Patrick.) I think we need to stop saying the word vacation in our household. It seems that Patrick thinks that vacations are taken in the hospital – this trip did not go as planned.

We flew to Seattle on Sunday. We rented a mini van and drove to visit our good friends, the Laylands who live half an hour north of the city. We had a good dinner and visit with them and then spent the night at their house.

As soon as the plane touched down in Seattle, my nose started to run. At first I was sure it was allergies, but by the next morning there was no question that it was a cold. But, we were determined to have a vacation, so after a quick stop at K-Mart for some cold medicine and other things, we set off for the city.

After picking up some much touted Mighty-O donuts and checking into our hotel, we headed to the Seattle Aquarium. We were in the first exhibit, a sort of aquatic petting zoo, letting Patrick play in the water and touch sea creatures when I looked down and noticed blood on his PICC line. Closer examination revealed that there was something wrong … there was definitely a leak.

So I made a quick call to our transplant coordinator and we headed back to the ER, leaving a very patient Lindy and her daughter stranded in downtown Seattle to avoid exposing them to hospital ER germs.

We were checked in quickly in the ER and sent to an isolation room at the back because of Patrick’s and my cold symptoms. Soon the IV team came to look and confirmed that Patrick did, indeed, have a cracked PICC line. And it could not be repaired.

As a result, Patrick needed to have a peripheral IV put in until he could get another central (goes to the heart) line. And he needed to be admitted to the hospital because you can’t get as good of nutrition through just a hand or foot.

Wednesday afternoon, there was finally room in the schedule to take Patrick to “Interventional Radiology” where they could place a new PICC line with X-ray imaging to guide them. They took Patrick down at about 3 p.m. At 5:30, a doctor came to the room to talk to us.

He explained that they had tried to pass the wire through Patrick’s vein to put in the PICC line and had run into resistence. So, they injected contrast into his veins and saw that there had been a clot. In response to the clot, Patrick’s body created a branch of smaller vessels to route the blood where it needed to go. This meets the body’s need, but doesn’t leave enough room to put a catheter into the vein to the heart. Because of this, Patrick can no longer have PICC lines in his arms.

They put a little bit more stable of a line in his arm then that wouldn’t go bad as quickly as an IV in his hand or foot and then gave us two options: stay here and have a broviac line put in, or fly to Salt Lake, be admitted there, and have a broviac put in.

We decided that it was best to just stay and have it done here in Seattle. The surgeons here had gone into the PICC placement procedure and had seen the problem first hand. Having Seattle Children’s put in the line also meant that he’d have it done sooner, since he could be put on the next day’s list.

Beyond that, in order to place the line, they needed to do an ultrasound study to see what Patrick’s remaining central blood vessels looked like. Since not having many available blood vessels moves you up the transplant list, we thought it was wise to have the transplant hospital have a record of what options remained.

So – yesterday Patrick had a new broviac line put in. He went to surgery about 3 p.m. and they were able to put the new line right where they wanted it. When I talked to the surgeon at 5 he sounded pretty good about how the procedure had gone.

There had, however, been one slight problem. Patrick’s stomach still doesn’t easily drain all the way. Even though he hadn’t eaten anything, and his stomach had been suctioned, it still wasn’t empty. As a result, he aspirated during the procedure. The surgeon said that they’d been able to clean out his lungs, though, and didn’t seem overly concerned. With any aspiration, there is a risk of pneumonia. He asked to keep Patrick 24 hours for observation, and then said he’d be able to go home.

I went to Patrick’s room to wait for him. When he finally made it upstairs, he was very upset. He’d curled himself into a little ball and was crying miserably. The nurse immediately set to work getting pain medications for him. And we decided to put him on monitors.

Things just seemed to get worse. The monitors showed that the oxygen levels in his blood were dropping, so we put an oxygen mask near his mouth to help keep them up. His heart rate was rising. He was breathing very heavily.

The nurse called in other nurses to help her and started taking vitals… And discovered Patrick was running a fever. They called down his doctors. While I explained the scarier things in Patrick’s medical history, his nurse wandered around the room making space to work if things got worse.

They ordered blood cultures to look for infection, gave Patrick some Tylenol, and got an X-ray of his chest.

Finally, they called the “Rapid Response Team”, which is a team from the PICU who come to the bedside. They watched him, took some tests bedside, and promised to come back to check on him within the hour.

Once all of the tests were done, I picked Patrick up again and he finally started to calm down. They started antibiotics while I rocked him to sleep. His heart rate was still high, and the antibiotics were making his blood pressure low, but he seemed to be starting to feel better.

As things started to settle down, I asked the nurse to help me reach elders from my church. One of the doctors in the room had mentioned earlier in the week that he had gone to school at BYU and we’d talked about how we’d been there the same year both studying Spanish. He spoke up and said “I can take care of that for you.” It was subtle, but we both understood that he was telling me that he was an elder and could help me with what he knew I was going to ask for.

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints we believe in the gift of healing by the laying on of hands by those who have authority from God. Brian is an elder in our church and had given Patrick one of these special blessings before he left. And this kind doctor subtly waited around until the nurses had left the room and then layed his hands on Patrick’s head and gave him another blessing, confirming the promises of health and comfort and strength.

Patrick slowly began turning around. His fever dropped and he started to sleep comfortably. A respiratory therapist came and tried to get Patrick to cough by pounding on his chest and back. Finally, she suctioned deep down into his chest and helped to get a lot of what was in his lungs out.

By midnight, Patrick was sound asleep. I stayed up to help the nurse get a few more things settled and went to bed. We slept till 7 a.m., when the doctors came in to check on him.

This morning, Patrick woke up with a smile. He was a bit weak and groggy at first, but has just gotten better and better all day long. Just an hour ago, he was climbing all over me on the couch in the room playing with toys and jumping. You would never know anything had been wrong.

The doctors are pleased enough with his improvement that they gave me the go ahead to book a flight back home for tomorrow. We’ll leave the hospital a little after noon to catch a 3:45 p.m. flight.  We should be home by 6 p.m.

I almost hate to write this because any time I’ve said that we were doing something this week, things have changed. But this time it feels like we really are going home. And I’ll be happy to be there.

I do have to share one example of the goodness of people in this world. While Patrick was in surgery, I put some of our clothes in the laundry room here. I got it as far as the dryer, but then when Patrick came back in such bad shape from surgery, didn’t make it back to it. I expected, when I headed back at midnight, to find my clothes piled in a basket somewhere. Instead, someone had taken the time to neatly fold them for me. This touched me because any parent using the laundry room here is doing it because their child is sick enough that they’re expecting to stay here for some time. The person who folded my clothes was certainly going through their own difficult time and would have been totally justified in being upset and offended at someone leaving clothes in a dryer. Instead, they took the time to make my day a little better.

This is just one example of the kindnesses that make raising a child with health problem so very rewarding.

Adoption Reflections: Getting to know you

I left off my story the night before Brian & I flew to Michigan.

Saturday morning, Brian and I got up before the sun. We went shopping for a few more baby things and for some presents for Patrick’s birth family. Then we went to the airport.

It was so strange waiting in line with a carseat, but no baby. In fact, the sight of us juggling so much luggage and an empty carseat drew some attention. A very kind man ended up helping me in line while Brian was off getting some money at the ATM. We were talking about our reasons for flying. He was taking equipment to Africa where he was going to teach people in 3rd world areas to build and maintain wells. When I explained why we were flying, he was in awe. It was very strange to meet this great humanitarian and have him be impressed with what I was doing.

We were flying standby, so Brian ended up about 10 rows behind me. I remember hearing him telling other passengers why we were flying and thinking “This is all so surreal.”

The amazing thing was, for all I was nervous, it was also all so peaceful. I’ll always remember how beautiful the fall leaves were on the trees as we landed.. and how right everything felt.

It was evening before we got to our hotel room, and then to the hospital.

We arrived and explained why we were there and were shown to a family waiting room. Where we waited, and waited, and waited. Finally, we met Patrick’s birth family… his mother, grandmother and aunt. Our timing couldn’t have been worse. We ended up arriving in the middle of a family crisis. But they amazed us with the grace and kindness they showed us.

We talked to the head of the NICU and to Patrick’s family for a while…learned more about his medical needs, and then finally got to meet Patrick.

I remember thinking that he was SO tiny! Just this fragile little ball of baby, with a head full of black hair. I got to hold him that night and was just amazed by him. We also got to know his birthmother and her family a little bit.

Soothed by my paci

We went back to our hotel a bit overwhelmed and not sure what to do. We were overwhelmed by how much of his medical status we hadn’t known… and by the whole situation in general.

But, we’d made a committment to give Patrick a day, and so the next day we went back to the hospital. We explained to the nurse that we’d like to learn all we could about caring for Patrick, and she was wonderful about giving us that chance. She taught us to change his diapers (around tubes). And she let us hold him.

Brian and I each got some time alone with him that day. I remember holding and rocking him and singing to him the words of a children’s song:

“I am a child of God,
and He has sent me here,
has given me an earthly home
with parents kind and dear.”

And my heart broke at the idea that Patrick didn’t yet know where his earthly home and parents were. And I didn’t know if I was able to provide that for him or not.

As the evening wore on, the head of the adoption agency finally came. She’d gotten word that no one from the agency had really acknowledged our arrival. She explained to us Michigan’s adoption laws, and what she knew of Patrick, his medical needs, and his birth family.

While she was there, two elders from our church arrived… courtesy Patrick’s grandma. (I’ll forever be indebted to her for sending them). They came to bring us the sacrament, and while they were there gave us priesthood blessings of comfort.

We visited with the adoption supervisor for hours, and then went back and spent a bit more time with Patrick. Then we went back to our hotel.

That night, as we were sorting through the dozens of pictures we’d taken that day, one jumped out at me. I looked at it and just KNEW that I loved this baby! And that I wanted him to be my son.

First days

Monday morning, we went back to the hospital. Finally people were there! We met more doctors, the hospital social worker, and the care manager who’d help us to get Patrick home. Calls were made to Primary Children’s to see if the doctors in Utah could take care of Patrick. His surgeons came and talked to us about Short Gut and transplantation. Finally we felt like we were getting a grasp on this situation, and amazingly, we felt like it might be something we could do.

Then we had the big decision to make. The night before, the woman from the adoption agency had explained that the papers we’d signed in Utah would expire if they weren’t filed on Monday. Besides, Brian had to fly back to Utah that afternoon for a conference at work. We had to make a decision before he left for the airport about whether or not we were adopting Patrick.

We held a “family conference” that morning… Just Brian, Patrick and I. We talked about the decision we were facing… and the fact that we felt ready to move forward. Then Brian turned to Patrick and asked him if he’d like to join our family.

He had been sleeping, but he opened his eyes and kind of looked at Brian, as if sizing him up. Then settled back down to sleep in his arms, as if totally content. We took that as a yes.

We asked our nurse to take our first family picture.

At 1, Patrick’s social worker from the adoption agency and the hospital social worker met with us. We didn’t have much time, so we signed papers in a hurry. Then we left to take Brian to the airport.

And that was it… Brian kissed me goodbye at the curb and said “Take care of our son.” We had a son! One with far more troubles ahead that we could imagine… but one who also just filled every room he was in with the feeling of peace and joy.

We’ve never looked back. Patrick is our little boy and we love him with all our hearts!